LHC seeks Malik's remission notification

The Lahore High Court Thursday ordered the government to present presidential notification regarding condoning of Interior Minister Rehman Malik jail sentence awarded by an accountability court and upheld by a bench of the high court last week. A petition was moved in the LHC on Wednesday challenging the presidential pardon granted to Malik against his conviction in two corruption references. Save Judiciary Committees media adviser Imtiaz Rashid Qureshi filed the petition in which Malik, the federation through the Interior Ministry secretary; the principal secretary to President Asif Ali Zardari and the chairman of NAB Islamabad have been named respondents. The petitioners lawyer Barrister Farooq Hassan submitted that the remission of Maliks sentence by the president under Article 45 was illegal, saying such a pardon was legal if an accused had exhausted all legal remedies.A single member bench of the apex court, comprising Justice Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry, ordered the Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan to present the notification issued by the presidency before the court on May 28, the date set for next hearing, to ascertain its legality.Hassan had said in his petition that if someone was convicted by a court, he had the right to file an appeal against the sentence in the Supreme Court, and if the petition was not heard by the apex court or the decision was upheld, he could file a mercy appeal with the president. The lawyer said the minister had not approached the Supreme Court in this connection, adding that there was no justification for the remission as Malik had not filed any mercy petition and the purported pardon was against the due process of law.